Monday Night 7.30pm

Lately my mind seems to have been so gummed up with information that I've been unable to write anything vaguely interesting. I just soak up news tidbits, work detritus and other fleeting visuals and aurals like a sponge, ponder them for a short while and then spit out some platitudes. My last post is an embarassing example of this. And, for the most part, I don't feel like dealing with my own stuff on this here page, so I write lazy leftie 101 stuff that anyone with the full complement of chromosomes is likely to agree with. I feel so uninspired. I've noticed that my blog is no longer a document of my life, but random comments on the things that happen around me.

So it's time for a round up, and a purge. Hopefully this won't be too messy. The theory is that I'll offload all the newsy, worky bullshit and maybe have something creative left over to share that comes from me - not from my sensory overload repository, which is buzzing and sparking and shortcircuiting.

The top 4 news items that have occupied my thoughts of late:

4. This story about the first class passenger who was angry about an old woman who died (DIED!) being placed in the seat next to him on a BA flight, in the absence of an in-flight morgue. Her 'wailing relatives' then showed up, and fair ruined his martini! Choicest quote (from our charming friend) 'I kept thinking "I've paid 3000 pounds for this"'. I think the commenter who said the following summed it up best:

"Too many who feel they deserve a better experience will be left alone by those they taught to honour the cash rather than the living. Those who had family about to laugh, and cry, and yes even wail, were those who spent their lives engaged in living, not demanding the best of everything at the expense of everyone else."

3. The Howard/Abbott roadshow. But those toads don't deserve any more blogspace. It's obvious what I think - but then, is it? And their foibles and snivelling soundbites take up so much of my time (particularly of a morning), I've actually had to call time on getting enraged by them. Suffice it to say I never cease to be disgusted. It doesn't help that I've been dipping into this book, which, although depressing, restores my faith in Australian journalism.

Side issues that I worry about include Ziggy "nukes are nice" Switkowski, Peter "tame and lame" Garrett (this one gives me particular pause and reminds me that to some, music is just a pastime, no matter what it seems to say) and the continued press time given to the sorry triangle of PHan, David "viagra" Oldfield and his chat show "wiphy".

2. The roadblocks in the David Hicks saga. Particularly the latest attempt by his "prosecutors" to use his father's words against him. Terry Hicks is made of strong stuff. I would have keeled over and died of heartbreak long ago. What worries me is that we may yet see that before we see Hicks return home.

1. Bob Woolmer being murdered. For me, cricket is both exotic and happily familiar, like a childhood holiday. It makes me think of the sun-drenched Carribean set to a soundtrack of Jamaican ska and the tinkle of steel bands. It makes me think of mulleted and afroed 70s and 80s heroes like Viv Richards, Dennis Lillee and Ian Botham (attach mullet or fro as appropriate). It makes me think of newer tottie like NZ's Daniel Vettori, Oz's Andrew Symonds and England's Simon Jones. It makes me think of the waft of pies and beer at the MCG (the other day I had a sausage roll for brekky at work and someone exclaimed 'It smells like the GEE!'). OK - I am an unforgiveable cricket dork. Perhaps someone should strangle me. But Bob? No. No. No. Did a player do it? The horror. We shall see.

OK. Now the things that are actually happening in my life. These are the things that I'd be pondering if I lived in another era, if there were no internet, radio or print media to distract me (thank fuck I don't watch TV or my head would explode!):

1. On Friday I finish up at a job I have occupied for far far too long. I am not sad to see the back of it. But I am actually devastated to leave my friends there. I am quite surprised by how quickly the emotion has crept up on me. On Monday I leap straight into another job. I barely have time to notice the rain drumming on the roof, or the gentle change of the seasons. So much of my time is spent staring at screens. Perhaps that's why I don't write here much.

2. My dad is a water diviner. He believes I may have inherited the gift. I feel sad that I may never get the opportunity to test out the theory. I fondly imagine him as a lad, scrambling over the Devon moors in his schoolboy britches, discovering underground springs and perhaps even treasure. I looked it up on Wikipedia, which takes the view that water divining is bullshit - so I won't link there. Why is something so magical bullshit? I am sick of the modern age. It has made me ill. My dad is of the generation that can't use the internet - he thinks IT'S bullshit. I'm not sure who is right any more.

I think there's a lot more to say, but I will continue later...